Alone
by AllUNeedIsFaith
Summary: Angel is all alone in LA again. A decade or so has passed since the season finale. The only thing to remind him of the 'glory days' is his old and faithful convertible which is still good as new thanks to regular check ups. Angel is in a bad state and unl
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Angel stood on top of the edge of the building and looked down the length of it. He felt the up draft catch his coat and make it billow up. He closed his eyes and surrendered to just the feelings that were surrounding him. The feeling of wind against his skin making his body temperature drop a few notches, feeling his hair stand on end as it did on occasion when his body temp dropped to just above or below zero, feeling the air move up through his hair and...

The piercing scream that cut through the air like a knife through hot butter. Angel's eyes were open and he pinpointed it as being just a block or so away. He stepped off of the edge of the building and began running towards the edge of the building before leaping onto the next one along and repeating the actions for the next one along and so on.

When he reached the side of the building where the woman was being attacked he dropped down off of it and landed on one knee and a bent leg. He stood up quickly the vampire who had the woman pressed up against the wall and was about to bite into her.

"Back away." Angel said in a steady voice and the vampire turned his head to look at Angel with a deeply pissed off expression on his face. He clearly didn't recognise the vampire with a soul. He then gritted his teeth before turning around completely to face Angel.

The vamp had a red t shirt on with a checkered shirt over it. He was wearing dark jeans and sneakers. He looked like he was a high school kid or a kid just out of high school and starting college. He had longish brown hair and brown eyes. His vamp face had the clear ridges all along his eyebrows and cheek bones. His teeth were almost unnaturally long and he bared them more than your average vampire. Angel looked at him and pitied the person who it used to be. He looked young and as if he actually had somewhere he was going to go in life. He looked a bit like Xander, only younger and slightly smarter looking.

"Leave it alone man. Just keep walking." The vamp said and bared his teeth more to emphasise the whole 'I'm a scary creature of the night' thing. Then Angel looked like he was going to keep walking just before he punched the unaware vamp in the jaw. Hard.

"Not something I do." Angel punched the vamp again and the vamp tried to respond with a punch but Angel blocked it. Angel threw another which was actually blocked by the vamp who got Angel in the stomach. Angel was slightly winded but then recovered quickly and punched the vamp several more times. He released the spring loaded stake hidden up his sleeve and said, "Man." Angel buried the wooden stake in the vampire's chest and the vamp looked at him with disbelief on his face before collapsing into dust.

The woman walked up to him cautiously with disbelief and happiness plastered all over her face.

"Thankyou, thankyou so much."

"No problem. Just... Try staying inside at night. Streets are dangerous at this time of the night." Angel grimaced inwardly at her puzzled expression. He always got those when he sat it was dangerous out at night. Mostly because they knew that already and didn't enjoy being patronised. The puzzled expression from the woman was probably because he sounded like one of those safety people that went to schools and talked about not getting into cars with strangers and stranger danger and everything.

Angel decided that leaving now while he still had some 'hero' image left was a good idea. He took off down the street leaving the woman very confused and with mixed feelings about Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome. And let's not forget the Just Saved Her Life part. Plus the whole Mysterious and Tortured Soul deal wouldn't hurt either.

Angel opened the door to his apartment (okay it was actually a bachelor's studio. What? He wasn't exactly rolling in it after the Wolfram and Hart thing ended). He walked the short length over to the thin mattress that was actually on the other side of the room (it's a small studio) and sat down heavily. He took off his shoes, then his shirt, and then he unbuckled the spring loaded stake from his arm and placed all of the paraphernalia aside on the floor.

He sighed (well not for actual breath or anything but just sighed for the sake of sighing) and looked up at the ceiling that had lights dancing on it from the main street below in which a stray car passed every now and then. A few shouts of a drunken group of friends just coming out of a pub a few buildings over floated up and crept through the closed window. Angel adjusted himself slightly on the extremely thin and pillowless mattress.

He stared at the lights that would come and go every so often on the ceiling for a second longer before getting up and pulling the blinds down with a snap. He had to or when he would wake up he would find himself roasted extra crispy. He stood there staring into space (or in other words brooding) for a minute or so before going back to the mattress and lying down. He closed his eyes and saw what he always saw. Flashbacks to the big fight.

He resisted opening his eyes and watched the scenes play out. After a while he felt something sticky in his hands. He finally opened his eyes and brought his hands to his eyes to see that his fingernails had cut into the palms of his hands and he now had four little cuts in each hand and he'd cut in so deep it could be classified as deep and not little. A lot of blood had seeped out of the deep cuts and he stared at it for a few minutes letting the image seep into his mind before getting up and walking over to the fridge that stood practically alone in the studio.

The only things he had in the studio were the mattress, the fridge and the weapons cabinet. After all, he didn't need anything else. There was a single thing on the wall and that was a target with many holes in it around the middle from the knives that Angel threw at it when he felt he needed practice.

It was as if he was paying for the year in Wolfram and Hart surrounded by so much glamour and his life was so easy. So now he lived in this inexpensive, sparse apartment with no comforts except for a thin mattress and the weapons. He kept his old car though. His convertible. The one that he'd driven to L.A. in. The one he'd used for so long until Wolfram and Hart had shown up with the many different cars and the old convertible had been left in the corner for so long. It felt good to be driving in it again.

It felt like he was back to where he was when he first came to L.A. Alone. Completely alone.

He reached for a box on top of the short fridge. Inside were many trank gun cartridges and he grabbed one of them. He looked at the wall, determined not to look at it while he did it. He jabbed it into his arm and felt the tranquiliser entering his system. He stumbled backwards towards the bed but he never made it. He just collapsed a few feet away and didn't wake until late the next night.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Angel woke up on the timber floor with a dry mouth and a headache. He stayed there for a good ten minutes before his hunger became too apparent and then he crawled/clawed his way across the floor to the fridge and opened it before getting out some blood and not bothering to even open it properly stabbed at it aggressively and then began to drink. He finished half of it off and then was actually able to stand, well kind of. He was about to put the rest of the blood in the fridge before he decided that he needed it more than the fridge and drank it in one big swig.

He sighed again and almost felt like burping before he remembered a look he'd once gotten from Cordy when he did burp after eating (drinking blood). He couldn't think about the utter repulsion she felt for him in that moment. Instead he staggered over to the bed and flopped down onto it feeling spent. He started to get ready to go out before realising that he couldn't get properly dressed whilst lying on the bed. He rolled over in an attempt to not get up but he ended up almost tearing his only shirt so he just mumbled to himself angrily and gathered all of his energy before getting into a sitting position. He began doing up his shirt and then, when he was finished, tested the spring loaded stake out and, discovering that it was in working order he stood up and put on the jacket.

He picked up a dagger and threw it at the target across the room and found himself slightly off so, after retrieving it, he tried again this time really concentrating and not swaying. He got it spot on so he went out and tried not to think about his ever present head ache. He rubbed the back of his neck with the palm of his hand and tried to loosen himself slightly. He was still wound tightly and that was bad when going into a fight.

He straightened out his jacket and then walked out of the door. He closed the door behind him and looked around the hall. Okay so it was more of a space than a hall. A space that had a very narrow staircase that made up half of the space. He walked down the stairs, not bothering to walk fast but took his time. He walked through the brightly light corner store that was beneath Angel's studio. He winced at the bright fluorescent lights and walked through the store quickly, wanting to get out of the light as fast as he could. He already had a headache he didn't need to have it aggravated anymore.

As he stepped into the night leaving the fluorescent lights behind he felt his headache reduce slightly and he started down the street. Without warning he swerved into an alleyway at the side of one of the taller buildings and proceeded to climb up the drainpipe on the side of the building. He hefted himself over the side of the building and walked over to the corner and stood on the step that was the border of the roof.

He closed his eyes and felt the updraft take away the stress from his face and any lines disappear. He felt his neck muscles and other muscles (back, arm, etc) relax and his energy be restored to its normal level of operation. He then felt his face be ironed out into a calm and almost happy face. He opened his eyes again and stepped backwards off of the step and back onto the roof. He centred his concentration as he had learned decades ago from that tai chi master. Among other things that he was considered the master at.

He then started a fast paced walking to the side of the building and leapt across the small gap onto the next one and then the next and then the next after that until he reached the wall of the building that the woman had been attacked at the previous night. He bent down on one knee and watched as she passed by walking quickly. He felt some annoyance but also the feeling of recognition. Of course she wouldn't have changed her course, she would just buy a gun or try moving quicker or something completely mundane like that.

He saw a vampire step in behind her and keep in step with her just a few paces or so behind. He followed the two by walking above them on the buildings. She turned into an alleyway and saw the vampire approach her. She kept her calm and Angel wondered what was going on. Then, all of a sudden, she delivered a roundhouse kick that made the vampire fly backwards. Angel's eyes widened. He should have seen it earlier but her being in grave danger the previous night had stopped it.

The blonde girl fighting with the vampire in front of him was a slayer. The slayer. Or at least one of them. Probably had been trained by one of the new 'Watcher's who weren't really watchers and more slayers that taught others. Or was currently trained. Judging by her technique this girl had some tricks that she could yet learn.

Angel observed the fight unfolding in front of him. The slayer didn't seem to know herself, or her strength, well enough to fight as well as she could. She had this inexperienced air around her as well that would take some doing to remove. No wonder she'd been in that fatal position last night. But she was also smart enough to cover up by pretending that she was an innocent bystander when Angel had helped her. Angel was starting to like this girl.

After a fight which looked like it could go either way the slayer pulled through by managing to pull her stake out of her fluffy white and brown jacket and plunge it into the vampire in front of her. Even the way she staked him was uncertain. She had her shoulders up halfway to her ears and was obviously tensed up. It was really more of a poke than a plunge. When the vamp collapsed into dust she sighed and put her stake back in her fake fur jacket.

Then Angel felt them. Vampires approaching really fast. The two options were that they were travelling by car or flying. Okay, there was one option but it was fun to consider the other one. Okay, not really but anyway. There were four vampires an Angel could smell the stench of vampires ready to kill and massacre. He ran quickly towards them via the roof and then dropped silently onto the road.

The car came at him at quite a scary speed and, just in time, Angel jumped up into the air and then landed _inside_ the car just behind the front seats. He quickly knocked out the vamps in the back with a strong kick to each of their faces and then the ones in the front with elbows to a part of the spine that rendered them incapacitated. He quickly jumped out of the car and watched as it smashed into a building. He then took out a lighter and dropped it onto the road where a constant line of oil had been dripping from the car. He watched as the flames quickly made their way to the car and engulfed it in flames. The car exploded and all the vamps in it were officially history.

He walked away from the blaze and off in a random direction to patrol the dark streets in an attempt to keep the LA population safe.

A blonde woman watched the whole thing in front of her and then, after a short inner debate, decided to follow the tall and dark stranger.


End file.
